Eighteenth century girl
by faithinthecharm
Summary: The story of an Eighteenth century slayer told through a mixture of media. Please R
1. A slayer in a society family

_Recognizable characters that have appeared in any book, television series or movie, together with the names, titles and backstory, are the sole copyright property of their respective owners. No copyright infringement is intended by the author, and no monetary profit has been made in the writing of this story. However, the story itself, as well as any original characters, are the sole property of the author. Please do not copy the story from this site or post these stories elsewhere without the express written permission of the author._

Authors note: The first chapter of this story is done through the medium of the diaries of four people the slayer, the watcher, and the two men who peruse her with occasional input from Buffy as the reader of the diary and society pages and household accounts taken in context of the time. This first chapter includes only the diaries of the two principle female characters and some setup with Buffy and Giles. Then it reverts to third person as the other method was a little difficult. I'll switch between the two methods where I think the story needs it. All feedback and ideas are welcomed. Please r&r

**Eighteenth century girl**

**A Slayer in a society family**

**Chapter 1**

In the new library of the Slayer Training building, Buffy Summers, the original vampire Slayer, was helping her Watcher Rupert Giles, the new leader of the Watchers Council, unload the Watcher diaries and a few other things contemporary to them. He was explained the new almost scrapbook method he had come up with of compiling all this information, the librarian side of his spirit soaring at the freedom he had had to play about with the historical 'stuff' since the demise of the council.

"So what is all this?" Buffy asked, indicating the volume in her hands with a jerk of her chin.

"That one is one of our most exciting finds." he smiled the joy at being surrounded by all this history "It has the diary of an eighteenth century Watcher, but also that of the Slayer, some media of the time and diaries of some of her contemporaries.

Buffy smiled at the mention of the time remembering her experiences of being a 'normal' girl of that time after being taken over by a Halloween costume provided by Ethan Raine. Her belief at the time had been 'my job is to look pretty, and then someone nice will marry me...possibly a Baron.'

She wondered what it must have been like to actually have been the Slayer in a time when this really was what was expected of women.

She looked at Giles "Can I...?"

"Since when has it mattered what I say?" but he spoke with a smile in his voice "of course, you need to know this anyway. You have to educate the new youth after all."

She settled in a chair, tucked her legs underneath her for comfort and began to read.

**January 1785**

Miss Farnwood

I am pleased to say that since I came to Miss Attwood, these five years since. I came to a spoiled, over indulged girl who would never be prepared for her destiny. I admit that I even went so far as to question the Council as to whether they had sent me to the right girl, the girl who even after so long seems more concerned with the latest ball season than with the female vampires that flock to these places to eat the eligible bachelors. Though a possible strategy for getting her to focus may be to put the idea into her head that the vampires might be depriving her eligible men may get her to shift her focus to what is really important.

Though to be sure, her marrying is a fairly important to her as the only girl in the family , which only has access to a middle income. It may actually become suspicious if I prevent her from entering the circuit. I may have to contact the Council and try to arrange an advantageous match from within the fold.

She is a very unusual girl in a very unusual situation. A Slayer in a high society family and therefore caught in the constant chaperoning of the time, which makes it even harder for her to function properly in her destined role.

Some Slayers are easier to come by when families knew that the duty of their girls might be different from being sheep, or even, dreadfully they were even more of a salable asset than they are know with this veneer of respectability over it all.

Miss Attwood

My name is Milicent Attwood, the eldest child and only daughter of my family, who are of a modest income and are for now at least of decent social standing. At sixteen I am supposed to be debuting in society soon, and my making a good marriage early in life would mean my family will not have to support me than any longer than is necessary and it could advance my father and brothers if I managed to secure good social connections via my marriage.

Yet somehow, I do not focus on it as much as I should, as much as my compatriots in the same social and economic strata as me do. But maybe, it is because I am the Slayer that I do not. I have seen more of the world than those who I sit with waiting for a dance like a potato sack at the balls. I may not have even been as far in miles as some of them, who have been as far as Spain and the America's, though they do not deign to speak to me often because their families often have a lot more money than we do, but they have not seen a vampire, or even the poor quarter of their own city alone or at night. And they certainly have never dressed in poor boys clothes and their hair tucked under a cap and slipped out of the servants door into the dead of night with a bag full of weapons and a heart full of fear but of the fight as well.

I tell you in this last year since I became the Slayer Miss Fernwood has become an expert dresser as well as the governess who has taught me French and music and how to hold my cup properly in society. She is also my Watcher, who has taught me Ancient Sumerian and how to use a crossbow. And who gave up a life and a marriage and the reality of womanhood in our time to tutor me, to lie for me and to keep me alive.

**2007**

Buffy Summers raised her eyes from the book "And I thought I had it tough."

"In fairness you did just not as tough as either of them did."

Buffy returned her attention to the book.


	2. Baron Uppingham's Balls

**Chapter 2**

**Baron Uppingham's balls**

"Millicent...Millicent" her mothers voice bounced shrilly up the stairs. The Slayer had only recently changed out of her facilitating disguise and having hidden it, slumped into bed. By God it seemed busy this season.

Her mother's voice came closer as she came upstairs, her mother knocked sharply and then without bothering to wait for an answer she barged into the room.

"Millicent! What are you doing in bed at this hour?" still not waiting for an answer her mother pressed on wafting a piece of thick cream pressed paper as if the movement was all that was keeping her heart beating "A card just arrived from the estate of Baron Uppingham, who just moved into Carrington Hall!"

"Yes, Mama I am aware of who he is."

"He is holding the first ball of the season dear"

Millicent winced, she hated that slimy old toad Uppingham and his unwelcome attentions to her person as she hated it when people called her 'dear' .

"Why don't you and Miss Fernwood go shopping, my dear? You'll need to look good for this occasion. Miss Fernwood seems to be a demon at getting you dressed for these things and you only have a few weeks to get yourself looking your best. It's been said that the Baron himself has taken a shine to you." Her mother stopped talking for a moment and seemed to see her eldest child for the first time "Are you all right, my dear? You look a little tired."

With that her mother breezed out of the room, in the same way as a breeze is like a rampaging tornado, muttering away to herself about "So much to arrange, so little time. That man..." Millicent listened to the fading sound and curled up in a ball and groaned before settling back down to sleep, without even bothering to close the door.

- - -

Hours later, Millicent had risen, dressed and headed for her Watchers door.

"Hello Millie" Miss Fernwood "busy night? Only your mother has been to me rambling on about the laziness of children, when they have an important job to do!" her friends voice rang with laughter. "What is this important job?"

"To secure the family's future and fortune. Apparently by marrying that terrible, terrible man. He's old enough to be Papa. He's old enough to be Papa's, Papa, for goodness sake!"

"So are we going to go into town, or are we just going to stake him when you go to the ball?"

"I think I'll go for the latter, but one should look good at society occasions don't you think Miss Fernwood? After all I will be staking a Baron after all!" they laughed and began to get ready for the walk into town.

- - -

The walk along the small street from the town seemed full of young women abuzz with the news of the ball. Millicent found herself smiling at the joy that a ball thrown by a middled aged bachelor could cause in a small town. He was old and unpleasant but he was worth four thousand pounds a year so they said and that could change how much people loathed such a man.

And how much that affected the awed silence that swept over the lane as his carriage drove over the hill, and the giggling that rose like hiccups as his glared out of his window. Millicent caught his gaze and looked away, tutting.

"You want to watch that Millie, he might have thought you were being coy" her Watcher advised.

"Well then, Miss Fernwood, we'll have to educate him then won't we? Isn't he more your age?"

"Bite your tongue Miss Attwood! Now we have to hurry the haberdasher will be busy and we need to be back before sundown if it's busy!"

- - -

Meanwhile in the carriage the elderly Baron looked out, eyeing up the girls on the lane like a farmer at a cattle market.

"I like that one Harksworthy" he grumbled.

"That one Sir? Her name is Miss Fernwood, she has very little standing in the community. Just a governess."

"She seems a little young to be a governess."

"Surely Sir you do not mean Miss Attwood, she's barely seventeen, far too..."

"Don't say too young Harksworthy. Does her family have money?"

"Their income is modest Sir."

"Then if she does not want to come to me, I'll buy the grounds for not coming to me right out from under her."


	3. Turn your face

**Chapter 3**

**Turn your face**

Millicent tucked her dark hair under her pilfered flat cap and headed out to partake of what she felt was her real life.

She and Miss Fernwood had picked up a ream of pale pink material, which her mother had, of course, hated on sight. They had returned to town, stood around and shuffled their feet for a while and had returned to the house, presented the exact same piece of material to her mother and had subsequently had it approved.

After sidelining her family, with her usual excuse, of devotion to her studies. She slipped out of the house leaving Miss Fernwood playing the pianoforte behind a closed door a closed door, but not as well as she generally could, so that Millie could keep up with what was expected her when the occasion called for it.

Millie pulled the cap down and the collar of the jacket up, as much to keep the cold out as to conceal her identity and slipped out of the servants door at the back of the house. Her blood sang in her veins, she could embroider or paint as well as the next person and had been told she was a good singer, but this, slipping out into the biting wind in secret, and, for want of a better term, going out looking for trouble, was what she knew she had been born for. Being this close to her own exposure or worse, death, was one of the few things in this world capable of making her feel alive.

Meanwhile at the big house, Baron Uppingham had exulted company that evening. A lady and a gentleman sat at his table, but they did not dine, in fact, in all the time he had known them the Baron could never remember seeing them eat.

The gentleman was tall and as dark as his lady was fair, both were very pale, dressed to the height of fashion and both carried a certain sinister air about them, but, as sinister was the fashion this season, the Baron paid attention to it as possible. He also owed it to the gentleman and the lady to ignore their imperfections, as they had helped him to get to where he was today.

Last year he had been ageing, penniless and close to debtors prison, with only his title to trade upon. The lady and the gentleman had met him them, when he felt his lot could not sink any lower, and had offered to pay off his debts and give him the money to re-enter polite society on the, then, seemingly simple proviso, that he take them up in society with him as he rose on their money, for they were 'growing tired of the savage society of our own people.'

The Baron had taken them up on their offer and he had risen quickly in society, staying always within the further conditions that he only rent his property and that when the lady and the gentleman decided that it was time to move on, it was indeed time to move on, and to accept his patrons' new friends and turn hid head away from the atrocities that seemed to trail along behind his new friends.

But the Baron had never been so vain as to presume that his limited moral code would stand in the way of a steady rise of his finances and his position in the world, so his ignorance came pretty easily.

However the sudden decision that he _had _to take a wife, in _this _town and it _had _to be _this_ girl had bothered his benefactors a great deal. So after listening to his reasoned argument of how a married gentleman of a certain age moved more comfortably in society than a single one , which would facilitate their plans.

Having heard this well reasoned argument they had gone out to have a look at the young lady in question.

The young lady in question was currently enjoying a particularly bracing fight to the death, with one of the members of the lady and the gentleman's new society. A well dressed, well spoken, fairly new vampire, who seemed as if he felt he was too good for the fight and was too concerned was how it looked to be involved in such an activity was close to costing him his life and was definitely costing him his all important dignity. The young lady in question was having a really good time.

"So, he wants to marry a Slayer, does he? It's hardly the best idea for the development of the new breed, my love." The gentleman said.

"But we're in her society now, dear heart, she can't kill us or our new friends without exposing herself. She'd risk going to an asylum, even risk charges under the witchcraft act. So she'd be forced to watch us develop her new breed. She'll be twisting in the wind. She'll go mad. It could be a lot of fun my Angel."

The lady said, grinning widely, showing the tips of her fangs, as the foppish vampire met his death.


	4. Black eyes and blue ones

**Chapter**

**Black eyes and blue ones**

Millicent returned home triumphant but slightly worried, she had fought, and killed, three vampires that night, an unusually large number to encounter in one evening, and one had caught her. Though the injury was certainly not life threatening, it was extremely noticeable. To put it simply it was a great big shiner of a black eye.

Now, had she been a gentleman, a black eye could have been comfortably and easily explained away. In fact the story of how one went about acquiring such a thing could act in ones favour if the tale was told right.

However Miss Attwood was a young lady, with no noble tales to hide behind and she was very worried about how she was going to explain it all away.

She went to Miss Fernwood to enquire as to what she the great teacher, Watcher and closest friend felt could be done about it. Millie was quite shocked at what her wise old friend suggested. That instead of making up a story about a head cold, which her family thought Millie suffered from a very great deal, and hiding behind a closed and locked door until it healed, actually undertaking some of the studies on which, normal young ladies of the age traditionally dally away their time, that possibly they should blow it out of all proportion.

"I beg your pardon Madam?" Millie asked, incredulity pushing her close to respectful address, after Miss Fernwood had finished outlining her rather outrageous plan.

"You intend that I should pretend that I sleepwalk and that I walked into a door, but everyone was sleeping so soundly that nobody heard."

"Not just you Millie. We pretend, it gives a perfect reason for you to be wandering around at night on your own."

"Dressed in stolen boys servants clothes, or would you prefer me to go hunting in my nightgown once we're through with this little escapade?"

"We'll deal with that when we have to!" Miss Fernwood said swiftly, obviously caught up in the brilliance of her new idea.

Millie breathed slowly through her nose, trying to remain calm while fighting the rejection of one of the major founding principles of the relationship between Miss Fernwood and herself. That Miss Fernwood was the Watcher and therefore was supposed to be the wiser of the two of them.

Miss Fernwood forced Millie none too grudgingly back to her bed and ran downstairs to ask her mother to call for the doctor.

Millie scowled at the idea of Doctor Balmoral, who Millie knew was already deeply disapproving of her, asking about how she came by her black eye, and his scepticism at being greeted by Miss Fernwood's ridiculous story.

However, it was not Doctor Balmoral who came through Millie's door that morning, but a younger and far more handsome man that strode through the door, heralded by a tide of anxious twittering from Millie's mother, who far from being worried about her daughter, seemed more worried about this new young man seeing her in her current state.

"My dear" her mother cried shrilly, upon entering the room "Doctor Balmoral has taken on a new apprentice, this is Doctor..." in all the excitement her mother had clearly burned herself out and completely forgotten the young man's name.

"Doctor Andrews, and I'm a partner Ma'am!" There was laughter in his voice which was lilted with a soft Scottish accent. He stopped, shoving his blonde hair out of his blue eyes.

Millie panicked at the sight of him. She suddenly became uncharacteristically girlish and attempted to tidy her 'just got out of bed' hair. However she caught her eye in the process and flinched, only succeeding in making her eye hurt more, and, she imagined, herself look worse.

She stood to greet him. He shook her hand and turned her face to look at her eye "How did you come by this?"

She turned her head and looked at him intently for a moment, Miss Fernwood's insane plan having momentarily fled out of her head.

"Er... Sleepwalking...there was a door...I think... and I walked into it... while I was sleepwalking...I said that already didn't I..."

She stuttered gently and dropped back into her chair. Miss Fernwood stepped in smoothly to rescue her babbling Slayer.

"Miss Attwood has recently developed a tendency towards sleepwalking and her eye looked like this when she woke up. We think she might have walked into a door."

"Well, as long as you didn't get it fighting eh?" Millie dropped her gaze to the floor "Just keep a cold cloth on it to bring the bruising and swelling down."

Millie's mother piped up then "Sir...Doctor... will you be attending the ball that Baron Uppingham is giving at his house?"

The mention of that terrible old man, the Baron, acted like a splash of cold water on Millie's mind, she was no longer a silly little girl and the Slayer in her mobilised quietly.

"Mama?"

The doctor turned his smiling gaze upon her.

"Will you be attending Miss Attwood?"

Millie opened her mouth to reply in the negative, but was cut off by her mother.

"Of course she will be Doctor as long as her eye has gone down enough. She is having a lovely pink gown made, and of the best possible material too!"

"Well then, Miss Attwood as shall have to hope I have dispensed the right advise in this household, so that I shall see you there. I will look out for you as my first friend in the neighbourhood."

He offered Millie his hand which she shook, he gave a small bow to Miss Fernwood and her mother and left.

Her mother watched him go, and giggled like a lunatic school girl before buzzing away barking orders at the servants. Millie watched her go and rolled her eyes at Miss Fernwood, but, she couldn't keep the grin off her face.

"And to think" Miss Fernwood commented drily "You didn't want us to call the doctor."


	5. Metaphorical murder on the dance floor

**Chapter 5**

**Metaphorical murder on the dance floor**

Millie stalked through Baron Uppingham's, rented, manor house, which was filled with giggling young girls, and with young men, puffing up their chests trying to impress the giggling young girls.

Millie knew that the likelihood of any vampires being in this place were very slim as this was an invite only, monitored ball, so if there were any vampires then it must have been that the Baron had invited them, which would mean he was evil as well as creepy. If that were the case then maybe she would get him to stake him after all.

And of course, she would never have been keeping an eye out for the new doctor at all, while she was working.

She was caught by an all to familiar wave of cramps, which meant there was a vampire close by. So the Baron was evil!

Millie whipped her head around, her eyes scanning the room for the source of the new sensation. She was so busy looking for creatures of the night, in fact, that she failed to notice the Baron advancing towards her until they nearly collided with each other.

"Miss Attwood, would you do me the honor of standing up with me for the next dance?"

She opened her mouth to protest, politely of course, but a sharp look from her mother, so rarely used that they were always effective, they died on her lips. Even as she walked onto the dance floor and the orchestra struck up the first bar of the refrain, she spotted the doctor stepping out with Miss Atkins, the closed thing, in social circles, that Miss Attwood had time to have, young, beautiful and charming, but a little vapid, not a real rival, Millie thought spitefully, and then chastised herself for the cruelty of the thought.

However, Miliie still seethed inwardly , but the smile, however icy, stayed settled on her face, while over the Baron's shoulder she watched Miss Atkins, chatting merrily to the doctor, HER doctor.

The refrain ended and she smiled politely and walked smoothly away, gritting her teeth all the time.

Once she was free of the Baron her eyes again swept the room for the doctor, who was chatting with Miss Atkins, who was listening to him empty headedly and giggling prettily in the right places. Millie bit back the urge to growl.

However, an older feeling replaced her newly flaring jealousies and turned her attention to the hunt.

Unfortunately this meant that her attention was drawn away from the Baron and from the doctor and Miss Atkins, and her father.

She skirted to the back of the ball room following a well dressed lady and gentleman, who snagged the younger Miss Phillips on their way past. Millie picked up speed, but no too much, trying to keep up with the lady, the gentleman and their, for now, willing companion. She concentrated on the three retreating figures so much that she barely glanced in any other direction and nearly collided with he doctor on her way.

"Miss Atwood, I'm am pleased to see that you felt recovered enough to attend tonight's festivities ..." he paused uncomfortably "Well enough to dance two sets with the Baron... Why should you choose to dance two sets with the Baron?"

Millie found herself pleased with the note of discomfort in the doctors force and found the forwardness and the honesty of him, the fact that he had been watching her and had been upfront with her unaccountably charming. She truly wanted to stay and continue to speak with him, but she knew she had other things to do, even if, however hard she tried she could not think of it as more important, until she saw the older Miss Phillips searching for her younger sister.

"Yes, Doctor I am perfectly well, but I can see you would not have missed me if I had not been, as you are having a wonderful time engaging in deep, philosophical conversation, with dear, Miss Atkins. Now if you will excuse me Sir, I have somewhere else I really need to be.

She turned away from him, outwardly very elegant, inwardly cursing, less at the missed opportunity, more at the fact that she knew that the vampires would now be too far ahead of her for her to ever hope to catch them, and that would probably cost the younger Miss Phillips her life, and that if she did catch up with them, she face great difficulty in fighting them when she was dressed this way and that could cost her, her own life.

The doctor stared after her retreating form and over her shoulder Baron Uppinham and Miss Millicent Atwood's father shook on an unexpected and highly unsavory deal.


	6. Miss Phillips

A/N For Justro.

**Chapter 6**

**Miss Phillips**

Millie searched, attempting not to lose herself between rage for her total ignorance and blind panic about her total lack of success in the search for the younger Miss Phillips.

Finally, in desperation, she broke a cardinal rule, laid down to her in stone and strictest orders, by Miss Fernwood. She did something that gave away her position, and her level of desperation. In other words, she yelled, her voice raw with fear. "Miss Phillips? Where are you? Please, if you are safe and well, make me feel the fool that I hope I am and answer me!"

She then addressed an unknown presence behind her. "Mark you beast, I shall know her voice and will leave at the sound of no other."

"Oh, come now." said a soft male voice, with a slight Southern Irish lilt to it. "We know that you're lyin' Slayer, we know you wouldn't leave without having a crack at us, and we'd be disappointed if you didn't, and even if ya weren't do you really think we would let you leave?"

In front of Millie, though out of her range of vision, she heard the sound of a soft, but dead, weight being dropped.

Her heart sank and her sense of rage hardened, now, not only did she know she was too late, she also knew that the Baron had to have invited these monsters into his home, into the party, and facilitated this horror, at the vampire equivalent of an all you can eat buffet, young, succulent and for the most part stupidly innocent. She was also now aware that there were at least two of the invited, undead, one in front of her and a more talkative one behind her.

"Goodness." Millie said "How I hate all this melodrama...Is the girl alive?"

"Why would you care girlie?"

"I do, that's all you need to know."

A different, female, voice answered. "It's alright, you already know, that we know who you are. Silly little Slayer, you come out here alone, unaware and unarmed, all for an equally silly, dead, little girl."

"So, you know who I am? It doesn't mean you know me." She drew a single stake from the front of her bodice, that drew a low, sarcastic whistle from the vampire.

"You think you can win with one stake?" The was a snort of laughter from the male vampire, who then continued to speak. "Well..." he drawled "...At least you and your little friend are going to die looking pretty, with your hair all done and that dress...I mean, if I were you, I wouldn't even try to fight us in that dress."

"And when was the last time you tried to fight in one of these dresses? Now stop being a pair of undead cowards and step out of the shadows long enough for me to kill you and reclaim young Miss Phillips and I'm pretty sure I could at least try fighting the two of you in this dress, but I am going to have to keep your dust off my skirts when I kill you!"

"Oh" said the female voice "We aren't going to step out of the shadows just yet. That would ruin all of our fun. Come my Angel."

"We'll be seeing you Princess" finished the male voice.

There was an odd sound and Millie was nearly bowled over by weight of the dead body of young Miss Phillips.

Millicent had failed, her great friends beautiful younger sister had been murdered right under her nose and she had done noting to try and stop it. She was too late.

Millie folded her own body over the still warm corpse, as if her sobs could tear apart the fabric of the world, and somehow set things right.


	7. Heartsick livestock

A/N Sorry I know it's been ages, but my muse deserted me. I've hit the classics again

**Chapter 7**

**Heartsick livestock**

Millie lay in the middle of her bed curled up in a ball in the middle of her bed watching glassy eyed as her bloodied dress was taken away by one of the housemaids. Miss Fernwood stood worried at the side of the bed.

"You had no choice, you were in a public place, you followed as fast as you could without drawing attention to yourself."

"Then perhaps I should have drawn attention to myself."

"You are of course aware of the danger associated with that."

"I'm always in danger, Miss Fernwood, that child, however, the one that died this evening was never supposed to be!"

"And if someone decides to capitalize on your decision, some would report you to the police or put you in an asylum, or worse sell your whereabouts to any local vampire, who was looking for you, which would be every vampire, demon or go between low life walking the dimension then you would be lost and many more innocents would die before they put you out of your misery?" The Watcher's eyes flared, and the softened. "God's girl, do you not understand, you are the safeguard between all of the people you care about and those things that took that girl tonight but you can't be everywhere at once." She leaned over this girl, who she loved as if she were her own child, in such pain.

"Sleep now my girl, there are no monsters under the beds in this house and there will be problems enough to deal with, demons enough to fight come tomorrow."

Little did either of them know that many of them were being agreed to in this very house, this very night, agreed to due to a lust for money, for status, and a lack of respect for ones children, as on this very night as she lay heartsick with her soul bleeding over her failure, a daughter was sold as livestock, to the man who's benefactors would, if they had their way, see her insane and eventually see her dead. Not just another to woman to play with, but a Slayer's endurance to test, to break.


	8. Money, my dear

A/N Woohooo finally a new chapter of something. I know, I suck, and I think my style's changed. sorry

Please R&R as usual

**Chapter 8**

**Money, my dear...**

Millie generally kept, at least outwardly, within the confines of expected behavior for someone of her gender and class, but that was not to be the way today.

She flew into her father's study, her rage meaning she did not work so hard as she should have to keep her strength in check, and when she slammed the door behind her it hung drunkenly on a single hinge.

"I will not marry him sir! I have choices. I am not chattel and I can say no if I wish to, and I shall refuse him." Her argument was succinct and made a point of the fact that she had rights, however limited.

Her father glowered at her from his chair, not bothering to stand to greet her tirade and only putting down his book when her speech had subsided to labored breathing.

"Dear daughter, it is not a question of if you will marry this man. You may rant and you may rave but your other choices of suitor are at last count, limited to none. If you had a man of standing who you wished to marry, then you would be able to give your argument some weight, but I see no suitor on the horizon." Her father smirked at her, as if this was some great failing in his seventeen year old daughter.

"What is it Father? How has our situation altered and become so perilous that my choices fall aside and I become a salable commodity?" Millie asked, managing to keep her tone lower than could reasonably be called a demand.

"Since the failure of your uncle's latest venture and the loss of the money I invested there." He replied in the same calm tones, with the effect of further infuriating his daughter.

"You my dear have since become as currency to this family, and if you fail to agree to this marriage, then we run the very real risk of becoming destitute. Your mother and brothers know nothing of this and if you uphold your duty to this family, and marry this man they need never know."

--

"So you agreed to this?" Miss Fernwood asked incredulously "The fate of the known world, and your own happiness rests on your own shoulders, and you allowed yourself to be blackmailed into something as inflexible and unwanted as this?"

"I did not allow anything, but I was given little choice, I have as much of a duty to my family as to you and to everyone else, of not more of one. My mother is fragile and my brothers are so young."

"Your mother is fragile as an ox and while I cannot disagree that your brothers are young, so are you, and I fail to see what this has to do with you sacrificing everything to offset your fathers selfishness and stupidity."

Millie fought the urge to grind her teeth again, as it became obvious that even while she spoke the truth about her feelings with her oldest and most trusted friend and advisor.

"Giving up what? I marry an old man and there is the possibility than when my duties are taken over I might live a full length of life, might just have a child, rather than dying a young Slayer, afraid to marry someone I loved for fear of endangering them, so never marrying and being alone, not even old enough at death to be considered an old maid?" Her anger was sharp now as her feeling of being caught between a rock and a hard place intensified

Miss Fernwood spoke again.

"You're not the only one who gave a lot up, and you know that your calling is not like that! Being a Slayer is not like being a governess, it is your destiny, your job if you like, to the grave. You cannot cease to be the Slayer because your name changes."

"Jobs pay...and if my _destiny_ did then there might be no need for this, God awful marriage, but now the deed is done. He is too busy and important to come here and ask me himself, so my father carries news of my acceptance to the hall as we speak. My secondary fate appears sealed." Millie smiled brightly but the expression was so brittle it would have snapped under pressure, just as her nerves would.

"We can always hope he dies first." She said before sinking into a chair and beginning to cry.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Oh, and this is joyous news...Isn't it?**

Before the banns for Millie's upcoming wedding to the odious Baron Uppingham were announced, it felt to her as if the whole country knew of her 'joy', in spite of her pleas to her ecstatic mother to keep i quiet, for the sake of decorum, at least outwardly. Inwardly, every time she thought of what her weakness had committed her too, and the damage that commitment might do to the unsuspecting community.

Other strains also plagued her, the constant rounds of visitors, day and night, arriving to congratulate her on her impending marriage, some of which she was never aware of seeing before, so she was sure they had come to look upon the woman who was to marry the old Baron. Her mothers scattergun approach to accepting people into the house left the family wide open to attack, and Millie a large distance from any weapons or method of disguising her identity.

It disgusted Millie and Miss Fernwood "Young Miss Phillips died at his house, and we are no closer to finding the creatures that did this. As far as they are aware there is a murderer in this community, perhaps in this very house, and the second a wedding is announced they push it from their tiny minds!" Millie fumed, and on this occasion Miss Fernwood had no kind, sensible words to offer in balance to her charges fury.

Her fathers next big announcement pushed her almost too close to the edge. The boys were too old for a governess, and upon Millie's leaving to become Lady Uppingham, Miss Fernwood would be leaving them, and the boys would be sent to a prestigious Shropshire boarding school, which sounded to Millie more like a penitentiary on the new son-in-law's money. It turned Millie's stomach that she had folded under her fathers pressure, and now her brothers and her watcher were being ejected from her home on her father's orders.

Miss Fernwood was as always pragmatic about the whole thing "You must point out to your husband that you will need a ladies companion to provide you with feminine stimulation, that you feel he would not be able to provide you with." She suggested in a light tone.

"I do not wish to think on what life will be in that house for me as the Slayer, or as a woman." Millie replied tensely.

However, in the interest of keeping them together she posed the question to her husband, who in turn posed it to his benefactors, who of course turned it down flat. Miss Fernwood was set to leave within the month.

Millie was close to inconsolable, the loss of her own liberty she could cope with, as the reality of her situation had always been closely guarded, by her Watcher, who had become a confidante and friend, an expert in lacing corsets at speed, providing alibis and talking sense when no one else about her seemed to manage it.

"What am I to do without you?" Millie asked miserably when it seemed that all was set to part them.

"Do as I taught you my child, be a faultless meek little woman by day, and a furious fighter, who has an outlet for her frustrations at night time. You are a resourceful, bright, strong young woman, just as I have raised you to be, and though I do not intend to leave this village, I have no doubt you will be fine."

Millie looked at her, grateful for her old friend's strength, but as a terrible thought crossed her mind, the expression in her eyes gained a hint of steel.

"If he discovers me, and thinks me mad...If I am committed to an asylum the world stands unguarded...You will..."

"Do what has to be done, my child." Miss Fernwood confirmed sadly."Now is there anything I can do for you Millie?"

Millicent smiled slyly at her Watcher before replying.

"Tell my dear mother I am unwell and can receive no more callers tonight, then inform her not to worry herself, she may still go visiting as you will sit with me...I feel I need to find an outlet for my frustrations, and I have barely been out for a week." She said reaching for a bag of old clothes, hidden in a box, beneath her bed.

Miss Fernwood nodded approvingly before leaving the room to set the subterfuge in motion, even a Millie changed and headed out of the window.

_'Woe betide anything that gets in her way tonight.'_ Miss Fernwood thought as she made her way down the winding stairs


End file.
